Thursday, October 27

Neither Nor

Kerry offered a middle ground between those advocating an immediate drawdown of the more than 150,000 U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and the Bush administration, which has declined to set a timetable for a decreased U.S. military presence.

"The way forward in Iraq is not to pull out precipitously or merely promise to stay 'as long as it takes,'" Kerry said during an address at Georgetown University. "We must instead simultaneously pursue both a political settlement and the withdrawal of American combat forces."

Does he figure everything will be find starting in a little over a year? No, he wants to pull out, but make it seem that it's a well thought-out policy, instead of a way to try to please both the hard-core anti-war people and the moderates. This is all about American politics and nothing about the situation in Iraq, as The Grape's Vine says. Or as the Houston Conservative says, it's all about political expediency. Then there's this: An Iraq Policy, Better Late Than Never By Dana Milbank: